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Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

deprocrastination.co

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Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me practical example of this? What and how you did

I had to create another account just to reply. I had nocprocrast turned on for hacker news (the irony!) Practical: 1. I lost 30 lbs from 200 lbs to 170 lbs How I did it. Step#1. Made an irreversible decision. I pay $100 every week if I miss losing 2 lbs that week. The deal was for 12 weeks. I started Monday and the deal is every Monday. I have to stand on the scale and take a pic and send it. 2. I solved 200+ Leetcod…

It's interesting to me that you mention the "not one person" viewpoint. I am forced through traumatic past experiences to live my life consciously aware of these other "me"s and them of "me", as a result of dissociation. We have to actively communicate with each other internally and work together. Things don't happen if we don't agree on them, or other "me"s will go off and do their own thing and we have to get on the same page to keep that from happening. Lots and lots of therapy.

Want to lose weight? I have to have every part of me on board, if one of me doesn't want to and instead wants to eat crap, they can and will and we lose our progress.

I can't count the number of times the dev-minded parts of myself resolve to work on X project or leetcode/day only to wake up the next day switched to a different personality that doesn't remember making that resolution, or even know how to work on code. There are parts of me that cannot even comprehend code another part of me has written, but when the part that wrote it comes back it's crystal clear. It has to be communicated among everyone inside that we have the goal to work on X and time has to be given to the parts that want to and can, consciously (if we're even able at the time).

There are still other parts with the internal authority to say that X thing will happen and they will show up every day to enforce their expectations. This doesn't happen often, usually in very stressful periods.

Any time a part of me wants to make a long term change in my habits, appearance, or behavior it must be put to a quorum majority vote. If there is not a quorum or majority we cannot make the change, or the formation of the habit or new behavior will fail. If we have a quorum but a conflict in what we want to do any given moment, we end up procrastinating. Parts of me can try to make their own routines and habits, or do their own activities if they have time alone, but inevitably if it's against collective will it gets put to an end quickly.

We have to have a contract with ourselves to be functional in day to day life. There is no reneging on the contract when we are forced to share a single life in this way.

When we agree? It's powerful. Lost 100lbs in 2018, saved up and moved across country in the middle of the pandemic last year, got a new job, a new car, and started moving forward in our career.

Also we get to use We/They/Them pronouns which is fun (I like to joke that technically any pronoun could be used for us.)

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#112

I feel like I'm one of the worst procrastinators in the world. Today I spent an hour doing some focused, concentrated work with zero problems, but then I had to reply to a "difficult" email that I've been putting off. The instant I opened my mail client I felt overwhelmed and started procrastinating. What would you recommend I do in this situation?

What helped me overcome the dreadful empty mail window was using a brainstorming / editing approach:

1. Using a different editor to write the draft, to prevent the immediate negative reaction to the mail client.

2. Brainstorming my draft. That is, I wrote down the first thing that came to mind, no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical. It doesn't even have to be related to the message at hand. It only needs to remove the daunting empty page and get my brain into "write something" mode.

3. Edit and repeat. Read what you've written and select anything that actually makes sense. Use that as a starting point and start again.

I think an important aspect of this is to freely allow my brain to write silly things. It's not a fun task to write serious emails, but writing a silly outline and filling it in with more serious wording makes it possible, for me at least.

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#113
I'd love to see the extension in Safari as well, not just Chrome and Firefox. Great work.

Edit: Also, the create password page has a bug where once you set your password, it then leaves the name/email/password/confirm fields blank instead of redirecting you to login. Could confuse a small number of users.

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#114
post #106

I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned possibly seeking help from a doctor. Prevalence of ADHD in the adult population is estimated to be much higher than the rate at which it is diagnosed. If you have the inattentive subtype of ADHD, medication is 90% effective at alleviating symptoms such as procrastination. Many people here have commented about doing a “dopamine detox,” but what if your brain isn’t producing enou…

Got tested a few years back and was told I don't have it, although I check pretty much every box on the inattentive type. I need to be better about attempting other ways to address the issues, but it feels like I can never catch up to give myself enough time to make a real game plan, and when I do try things (like Pomodoro) they fall apart within hours.

Pomodoro is only one method, and it's best for repetitive work. For creative work 60 or 90 min intervals often work better since we operate in 90 min ultradian cycles.

See if you can find anything useful on our blog (or in the course).

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#116

I'd love to see the extension in Safari as well, not just Chrome and Firefox. Great work. Edit: Also, the create password page has a bug where once you set your password, it then leaves the name/email/password/confirm fields blank instead of redirecting you to login. Could confuse a small number of users.

Thank you for catching the bug, I'll take a look at it.

As for Safari, unfortunately, some critical APIs (used for timers or distraction-catching notifications) don't seem to work at all, so it'll take some time to port the extension.

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#118

I feel like I'm one of the worst procrastinators in the world. Today I spent an hour doing some focused, concentrated work with zero problems, but then I had to reply to a "difficult" email that I've been putting off. The instant I opened my mail client I felt overwhelmed and started procrastinating. What would you recommend I do in this situation?

Get a difficult-er email to reply to and you'll be all over that first one. Just don't let on to your brain what you're doing or it'll stop working!

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#119
post #71
post #3

Thanks! I'll watch it tomorrow.

"Why put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after that." ancient proverb

The fastest code is the code that's never executed. The most efficient task is the one you dodge entirely. :P

Re: Show HN: I made an interactive anti-procrastination video course

#120

Simple solution for me was to do a dopamine detox. This requires getting rid of things you enjoy, but that's somewhat the point. Instead of doing things you want, you are wasting time on things you don't. After giving up video games, programming was fun. Reading nonfiction was insanely fun. So much so, it became a new addiction. Maybe giving up things you enjoy is easier said than done.

Interesting, considering gaming, do you completely give up gaming? Or reduce it to moderate levels?
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